Well I'm bored tonight and for once don't have anything better to do. So here is another installment in my never ending Roosky adventures.
Now after I moved into my lovely new apartment I ended up doing a lot of waiting. My lady was running around trying to make final preparations for our trip. The owner of the apartment came over regularly to fix up the place and we went out to eat a couple of times. I had bought a book about marial arts and relaxation for my trip. What a great book to have along when you get stuck in a crappy apartment in a foreign country all alone. When my lady would come over she'd ask me if I watched TV to pass the time. Well I had 2 channels and the TV kicked out if it was turned on for more than an hour at a time. Russian living at it's finest.
I did get out quite a bit that first week but I was getting anxious because we never seemed to be any closer to leaving Volgograd. I did go to a Constantin Nikolsky concert. It was an outdoor concert near the Volga. There must have been over 10,000 people in attendance. We worked our way up to the front to watch. Afterwards there were fireworks on the river. It was all to celebrate the festival of the bread. Nobody I talked to knew what was the importance of this festival. But the Russians have many holidays. I really enjoy that part about Russia. Too many people I know in Canada never celebrate anything. I like to go out and enjoy life a little.
The apartment owner was also getting anxious. He wanted more money if I was going to stay any longer. He wanted way more money than that apartment was worth. Eventually he got into an argument with my lady. My lady came down with a nasty flu at about this time. This meant that we had to postpone or trip yet again. And I had to find a different apartment. Her stepfather finally got ahold of a good friend of his who owned a couple of apartments. So late one night I loaded all my things into a cab and moved to this new apartment. Because the other apartments were under renovations this lady let me live in her apartment.
Tania(my new roomate) is in her late 40's and has a son who is a navy diver stationed with the submarines in Kaliningrad. She decided that she would sleep at one of the other apartments but during the day she and I visited and watched TV together. My lady was incredibly sick and didn't spend much time with me. Tania speaks fluent german as well as Russian. Unfortunately that does me no good as the only German I know is a few swear words. When I was younger I learned how to swear in many languages. But she is a patient woman and with the help of my dictionary we had some very good conversations. She wanted to introduce me to every young woman she knew in Volgograd. I was up for it but my lady kept showing up and ruining it all.
There were a few days when my lady was very, very late. This annoyed Tania. She ended up reeming out both my lady and her mother because of this. Her mother was in agreement with Tania. This got me into trouble because my lady thought I was causing trouble with her family. But it was her own doing. If she would have informed us what was going on we wouldn't have worried. But when she says that she'll come over at 10 in the morning and doesn't show up until 7 or 8 at night we were all starting to wonder about her. And I never asked Tania to give my lady a lecture on manners.
After I was more than 2 weeks in Russia we finally made our arrangements to go to Sochi. And my lady wanted to go with me to Moscow after that. She was still a little sick and wanted to go to a sanitorium. So I bought train tickets to Sochi, a room for 10 days in a sanitorium and plane tickets to Moscow.
My last night in Volgograd Tania and my ladies mother wanted to give me a send off feast. My lady almost never got me back to Tania's apartment in time for this. But we picked up her mother and sister and went to my place. Tania had invited over her son's fiance and the fiance's sister. The sister spoke English better than my lady. For those of you who have never had to spend a month communicating in a language that you speak very badly, it is a great relief to be able to talk English again. So there I was the guest of honour at a banquet consisting of 2 older women and 4 attractive girls in their late teens and early 20's. I love Russia.
The next day we were off to the coast of the Black Sea.
More later.
